As Malaysia Gets Ready to Vote, Stay Up to Date with These GE13 Apps for Android and iOS

This Sunday, Malaysians will decide the country’s future as they vote in the 13th General Elections. Widely touted to be the most closely watched elections in the country’s history, Malaysia’s improved Internet penetration is playing a key role in making 13th Malaysian General Elections (GE13 or PRU13) more engaging to the 28 million Malaysians in the country and around the world.

In addition, with smartphone penetration rates being one of the highest in the region, many – especially the younger voters – are using alternative means of getting their GE13 fix on on the go via mobile devices. As the attention shifts to these forms of obtaining the latest news, some enterprising Malaysians have developed apps catering to such users.

We take a look at some of the most popular GE13 apps available on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store to see if these apps provide an all-in-one solution for everything GE13.

JustUndi is a nice app that shows you all the voting information you need to know in the past and upcoming election – both GE12 and GE13. You can see the summary of who won what seat on the 12th General Election, and see who is running for the upcoming election. It contains all the Parliament Seat and State Seat information. There’s even a personal poll within the app that allows users to cast their vote just for fun.

Pros: Easy to use and straightforward, you can easily look for the information you need to help you vote like who is running for the seats in a particular state. I personally like how it has GE12 results for you to compare.

GE13 by Appxquare also shows you voting information like the candidates running for each state. You can also get a summary of the results in the last General Election however, the interface is not as easy to use as JustUndi. What I personally like about GE13 is the news section that pulls out news from the internet such as from The Star Online, Free Malaysia Today, NST and more.

For polling day, it will provide results within the app itself for all the state seats.

Pros: All the news provided opens within the app, it doesn’t redirect you to the browser making it much easier to read.

I’m sure those who are eligible to vote and will be voting are already well aware of where they can do so. You can easily check online but Voter Check allows you to easily and quickly check your voting status via the app. It’s faster and you can even help your parents check their voting information on the day itself just to make sure everything is correct.

Voter Check also provides a Voting Process for first time voters like myself who are not sure of the process. The app will also provide GE13 results on polling day and there’s even a little InfoGraphics tab to show you the past result graph – only a simple bar graph.

Pros: I like the Voting Process guide – you can never be too safe right? There is also a News & Videos section for you to find online news easily for each of the parties.

Undi PRU13 is another straightforward and simple app for the upcoming election. You can easily search for a constituency using GPS (nearby), by name, by Parliament, or by DUN ID number. Once you have gotten the constituency you’re looking for, the app even provides the exact location on a map. The constituency page also provides information about each specific polling district for a particular state.

On polling day, Undi PRU13 also has a result page to keep users up to date with the results. You can also see the results of the last General Election.

Pros: Under the Results + Info tab, there is an election map that shows you all the constituencies. You can even get the directions to the specific area via Google Maps on your browser.

Finally last but not least, now that you’ve gotten all the vital voting information to assist you with the upcoming General Election this Sunday, 5 May 2013, how about something to read about? My Constitution has a huge collection of “The Rakyat Guides” books that gives you pretty much all the information you need to know about The Federal Constitution of Malaysia. There are 9 books in the collection to educate you about General Election in Malaysia. I have to admit, I haven’t read through any of them yet, but it’s definitely a good library to teach you more about Malaysia. There’s also a video section with videos collected from the internet since 2009.

This app is one of the more polished ones in the Play Store, in addition to having a very handy and powerful search box that users can use for virtually any keyword related to GE13. From incumbent and candidate names, to constituencies and even ID numbers, the search box allows users to view accurate results.

In addition, the app utilizes Google’s Maps API to sync constituency locations with Google Maps – and give you directions to get there if you need to. There’s also a very handy list of results from the the 2008 General Elections, sorted by state. Finally, the app also has a link to check users’ voter status, which points to the official Suruhanjaya Pilihan Raya (SPR) website.

PRU13 pulls a few news updates from Malaysiakini for its GE Update section, while there’s also a Politician section, where each candidate’s information are pulled from Wikipedia. In addition, there’s also a nifty “Event Location” section which lists down the upcoming “ceramah” with additional information such as time, date, location and also speaker lists.

Unfortunately, the list contains zero entries. The “Hot Seat” section is also listed as “Coming Soon!”, making this app quite a dud despite the promising sections.

Berita Baru PRU13 pulls news and updates from Sinar, Utusan Online, HD, Malaysiakini, and Arus Baru – all in the Malay language, making it unique among the other apps featured here. In addition, the app – while occasionally buggy – is designed with a simplistic, no frills approach, letting its content take centrestage.

Like the iOS version, JustUndi for Android features the 2008 General Election statistics, broken down by state. Users can expect the same statistics to fill up the currently-empty GE13 Summary section. Otherwise, the two other features of the app – JustUndi Polls (a voting “game”) and Issue Polls (a survey of sorts) – do not really educate the user and does not provide information regarding GE13.

There are actually two apps called GE13 on the Play Store. The first is developed by appxquare, which provides plenty of information on GE13. Opening the app brings you straight to the Results page – which is obviously empty. The app also pulls news and videos from various publications, in addition to providing a comprehensive list of candidates for all constituencies.

Also, there are handy links to popular Twitter links and hashtags related to GE13, as well as Facebook pages to all the competing parties, where these links open to an in-app browser. There’s also a link to open SPR’s voter status page as well. All in all, a very comprehensive GE13 app.

Unfortunately, the developers spent less time on perfecting the user experience on the app. Right of the bat, the scrolling performance in any section of the app is abysmal. In addition, since there is no “home” screen, if at any time (other than when the in-app browser is open) a user presses the “Back” Android button, the app closes. It really is a pity that the app performs that poorly, because out of all the apps featured here, this is by far the most comprehensive.

The second of the two apps called GE13 is, fortunately, is a lot more polished than the first. The app, like the Berita Baru PRU13 app, is simplistic in nature, breaking everything down to three sections. The first is a very handy “GE13 Updates”, which pulls news updates from The Star, Bernama, Malaysiakini and Astro Awani, among others. All news posts appear in-app, so users do not need to go to all four websites to read through their content.

In addition, GE13 also adds a unique feature that none of the other apps have: “Voter’s Ed”. It is a section catered to the first-time voter with various tips and trivia. The third section is, of course, the results section. Finally, users can also set the app to show notifications on the Android system when new posts are available.

There’s an app for that…

With information becoming increasingly accessible through various media, these apps featured above provide a convenient alternative for the younger generation to remain in touch with everything and anything GE13. Naturally, having the added information will only allow Malaysians to vote with greater confidence and make their votes count for the future of the country.